On an operatic bad day you can sometimes see forever -- but oftentimes not

"Wicked world. -- There's no more virtue. -- Everything's in decline."

-- A man who knows a thing or two about, you know, things

A man staggers up to an inn . . .

The exterior of the inn, which along with its name bears the motto: "HONNY SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE." A bench beside the door. It's the hour of twilight.

Our man is seated on the bench, meditating. Then he stirs himself, pounds on the bench with a big fist, and turning toward the interior of the inn calls to the host.

by Ken

Even if we make clear that by "an operatic bad day" I don't mean a bad day for the audience (of which I often feel I've experienced not just my own share but a whole bunch of other people's) but a bad day for the main character(s) onstage, it may seem oxymoronic to be talking about "operatic bad days." Aren't they mostly pretty rotten? Isn't this what opera is usually about? Isn't it a significant part of what we normally think it means for something to be "operatic"?

The kind of bad day I'm thinking of, though, isn't just a day when everything seems to go wrong, even disastrously wrong. I'm thinking of the kind of day when the victim realizes that he/she has played a major role in setting off the unfortunate chain of events, and as a result, despite a certain lack of totally accurate perspective, owing to the inevitable bleakness of spirit, sees truth(s) stretching out as far as the imagination can see.

The part about the victim realizing that he/she has played a major role in setting off the unfortunate chain of events clearly excludes out companion today. In Sir John Falstaff's imagination nothing is his fault, and never mind that it was his own crackpot scheme to seduce one or maybe two of the merry wives of Windsor, not even for libidinous satisfaction but to tap into their not-so-merry husbands' coffers to provide himself with a bit of working capital, blindly falling into separate traps set by both the women and men of Windsor, that resulted in his being dumped unceremoniously into the Thames in that giant basket full of rank laundry.


SIR JOHN'S FEELING OF VICTIMHOOD CERTAINLY
IS EPIC, THOUGH -- RUNNING DEEP AND, ER, WIDE

Sunday Classics snapshots: In D.C., still no Lincoln -- or even a Boccanegra

Leonard Warren as Simon Boccanegra

I weep for you, for the peaceful
sun on your hillsides,
where the olive branches
bloom in vain.
I weep for the deceptive
gaiety of your flowers,
and I cry to you "Peace!"
I cry to you "Love!"

Leonard Warren (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Jan. 28, 1950

Lawrence Tibbett (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ettore Panizza, cond. Live performance, Jan. 21, 1939

by Ken

The great political chronicler Richard Reeves titled his book about the start of the post-Nixon (i.e., post-Watergate) presidency of Jerry Ford: A Ford, not a Lincoln. I think of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. And while other American presidents have certainly risen to moments of great challenge, it's not something our political system can be counted on to make happen, and if anything even less so with the rabble that makes up our Congresses.

So perhaps it's not surprising that under the combined influence of the fratricidal follies rending the House of Representatives and a not-all-that-attentive watching of the whole of the upgraded-for-HD Ken Burns Lincoln film, and in addition with the notable contrast of the summonses to a very different sort of action delivered by Pope Francis on his American visit, my mind wandered to the rising-to-the-moment of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the plebeian Doge of Genoa faced with the riot that breaks out in his own Council Chamber between the blood-rival factions of Plebeians and Patricians, following the attempted abduction of the patrician daughter Amelia (in reality Boccanegra's long-lost daughter Maria, as he himself has only recently discovered, in the Recognition Scene of Act I, Scene 1, which we spent a fair amount of time on here once upon a time) on behalf of the Doge's henchman Paolo, which was foiled by Amelia's patrician fiancé, Gabriele Adorno, who killed the would-be abductor.


ABOVE WE'VE HEARD THE DOGE'S GREAT PLEA --

On our way to focusing on Nedda's scenes with the two baritones of Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci"

Daniel Sutin as Tonio the clown in Austin, 2012

PROLOGUE (sung by the performance's Tonio) -- conclusion:
And you, rather than our poor
actors' costumes, consider
our souls, because we are people,
of flesh and bone, and since in this orphan
world, just like you, we breathe the air!

I've told you the concept.
Now hear how it worked out.
Let's go -- begin!

Leonard Warren (b), Tonio; RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini, cond. RCA-EMI, recorded January 1953

Giuseppe Taddei (b), Tonio; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Sept.-Oct. 1965

by Ken

The recordings by leonard Warren and Giuseppe Taddei are the ones we heard in the September 2010 post "The Prologue to Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci entreats, 'Consider our souls' " when we broke the Prologue down into chunks, culminating in this one. We should probably note that the high notes -- on "al pari di voi" ("just like you") and "incominciate!" ("begin!") -- aren't Leoncavallo's, but the music sounds pretty flat without them, and I can't imagine he would complain about the effect that Leonard Warren in particular achieves with them.

I was tempted to repeat that Prologue breakdown here, but especially now that I've imported it that series of posts into the stand-alone "Sunday Classics" blog, it's readily available via click-through. But I don't want to venture into the opera again without hearing the whole of the Prologue, so let's do that.

THE COMPLETE PAGLIACCI PROLOGUE

Verdi's Falstaff holds court in the Garter Inn

"Reverenza!": Mistress Quickly approaches Falstaff in the Garter Inn.

The interior of the Garter Inn.. FALSTAFF as always sprawled in his big chair in its usual place, drinking his Xeres. BARDOLFO and PISTOLA near the back near the door at left.

BARDOLFO and PISTOLA [beating their breasts in acts of repentance]: We're penitent, and contrite.
FALSTAFF: Man returns to his vices,
like the cat to fat.
BARDOLFO and PISTOLA: And we return to your service.
BARDOLFO: Master, out there there's a woman
who asks to be admitted to your presence.
FALSTAFF: Let her enter.
[BARDOLFO goes out and returns with MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY [bowing deeply to FALSTAFF]: Your reverence!
FALSTAFF: Good day, good woman.
QUICKLY: Your reverence!

Giuseppe Nessi (t), Bardolfo; Cristiano Dalamangas (bs), Pistola; Giuseppe Taddei (b), Sir John Falstaff; Amalia Pini (ms), Mistress Quickly; RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra, Mario Rossi, cond. Cetra, broadcast performance, 1949

Renato Ercolani (t), Bardolfo; Nicola Zaccaria (bs), Pistola; Tito Gobbi (b), Sir John Falstaff; Fedora Barbieri (ms), Mistress Quickly; Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1956

by Ken

As promised in Friday night's preview, when we heard Master Ford's deliciously awesome monologue from Act II, Scene 1 of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, with a magical libretto by Arrigo Boito (who had also written the utterly different libretto for Verdi's Otello), today we're going to work our way through the scene.

The opera, you may recall, is constructed of three acts with two scenes each, all roughly the same length. The first scene of each act is set in the Garter Inn in Windsor, the roost of the aging Sir John Falstaff, who's dealing with a severe case of impecuniousness, and in the opening scene hatched a nutty scheme, based on his estimate of his supposedly awesome seductive powers, to seduce one or both of two merry wives of Windsor, Mistress Alice Ford and/or her next-door neighbor, Mistress Meg Page. He has sent them comically poetical love letters, identical except for the names, and unbeknownst to him this caper has become known to, well, pretty much everyone in the two, and rival revenge plots have been hatched. (We've focused on Falstaff before, but mostly heading forward toward the sublime final scene in Windsor Forest.)

So here we are back at the Garter, and what we've already heard above is the arrival, in full fawning mode, of the elderly Mistress Quickly, to launch the merry wives' plot.


I HAVE TO SLIP IN A QUICK PERFORMANCE NOTE

The Prologue to Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci" entreats, "Consider our souls"

Juan Pons as Tonio lip-syncs the Pagliacci Prologue in Unitel's 1982 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Georges Prêtre conducting the La Scala orchestra. (Ignore the other clowns Zeffirelli's inserted, mere distractions.) We even get to see the traveling players arrive in the Calabrian village, with Plácido Domingo as the master of the troupe, Canio, and Teresa Stratas as his wife and costar, Nedda.

If I may? If I may?
Ladies! Gentlemen!
Excuse me if I present myself thus alone.
I am the Prologue.
Because the author is putting
the old-style masks
onstage again.
In part he wants to revive
the old customs, and to you
once again he sends me.

But not to tell you, as before,
"The tears that we shed are false,
by our agonies and our suffering
don't be alarmed."
No! No!
The author has sought
to paint truly for you
a slice of life.
He has for maxim only that the artist is a person,
and that he must write for people,
and draw inspiration from what's true.

A nest of memories in the depths of his soul
sang one day, and with real tears
he wrote, and his sobs beat time for him!

So then, you'll see loving, yes, the way
real human beings love; you'll see hate's
sad fruits, miseries' agonies.
Cries of rage you'll hear, and cynical laughter!

And you, rather than our poor
actors' costumes, consider
our souls, because we are people,
of flesh and bone, and since in this orphan
world, just like you, we breathe the air!

I've told you the concept.
Now hear how it worked out.
Let's go -- begin!

by Ken

Hanging on the grimy wall of my college newspaper office was a yellowed sheet that was the "key" to the 5-point rating system we used for movie reviews. Oh, I pooh-poohed the numerical ratings, on the ground that how can you reduce a sensible evaluation to a number? But the fact was that our readers all too clearly paid more attention to the ratings than to the ever-so-wise reviews.